page_title: Maine Central Railroad Company
section_title: Guilford
hierarchical_section_title: Maine Central Railroad Company / History / Guilford
caption_attribution_description: inactive railroad with bridge over the Kennebec River, near Augusta, Maine, US
context_page_description: The Maine Central Railroad Company was a former U. S. Class I railroad in central and southern Maine. It was chartered in 1856 and began operations in 1862. By 1884, Maine Central was the longest railroad in New England. Maine Central had expanded to 1,358 miles when the United States Railroad Administration assumed control in 1917. The main line extended from South Portland, Maine, east to the Canada–United States border with New Brunswick, and a Mountain Division extended west from Portland to Vermont and north into Quebec. The main line was double track from South Portland to Royal Junction, where it split into a "lower road" through Brunswick and Augusta and a "back road" through Lewiston which converged at Waterville into single track to Bangor and points east. Branch lines served the industrial center of Rumford, a resort hotel on Moosehead Lake, and coastal communities from Bath to Eastport.
  At the end of 1970 it operated 921 miles of road on 1,183 miles of track; that year it reported 950 million ton-miles of revenue freight.
context_section_description: In 1980, the railroad was purchased by U.S. Filter Corporation and was then sold in 1981 to Guilford Transportation Industries, which later purchased the Boston and Maine Railroad (and thereby the Portland Terminal) in 1983 and the Delaware and Hudson Railway in 1984.  Initially Guilford operated the system intact, although the system now permitted run-through traffic between central Maine and Boston.  By the mid-1980s, Guilford began to rationalize its system and fully one-third of Maine Central's trackage was eliminated, including the "Mountain Division" from Portland to St. Johnsbury, Vermont; the "Rockland Branch" from Brunswick to Rockland; the "Calais Branch" from Bangor to Calais; and the "Lower Road" from Augusta to Brunswick.  Guilford also forced many management and salary changes, resulting in a major strike against the company in 1986. Guilford Transportation also moved the Maine Central's headquarters from Portland to North Billerica, Massachusetts in the mid-1980s.
  One of the instigating factors which led to the labor strife at Guilford relates to a corporate reorganization at one of the company's former Maine Central properties.  After the Calais Branch was abandoned, a small portion of trackage between Calais and Woodland remained in service to a pulp mill.  It was joined to the rest of the North American rail network through a connection with the Canadian Pacific Railway at St. Stephen, New Brunswick and operated through New Brunswick territory for several miles between Calais and Woodland.  In order to avoid union agreements that the rest of the rail system was forced to follow, Guilford leased this operation to an obscure B&M subsidiary known as Springfield Terminal Railway, because shortlines operate under different federal rules.  Eventually, the corporate reorganization under Springfield Terminal would extend to the full extent of Guilford operations, and attempting to run a class 1 under short line rules would lead to years of union troubles.
  The former Maine Central locomotive shops in Waterville continue as Guilford's main repair shops.
  In the early 1990s, Guilford ended its practice of putting the full "Maine Central" name on the long hoods of MEC locomotives.  Instead, the locomotives would wear the "Guilford Rail System" moniker, with small "MEC" reporting marks underneath the cab windows.
  On November 1, 2003, the Morristown and Erie Railway (M&E) took over the former Maine Central "Lower Road" (main line) and Rockland Branch routes (aided by significant public funding from the state Department of Transportation). M&E is operating these state-owned lines as the Maine Eastern Railroad. Prior to M&E, the Rockland Branch had been operated by Safe Handling, and before that, the Maine Coast Railroad. Several railroad preservation and promotion groups are seeking to have the state-owned Calais Branch and Mountain Division routes reactivated for use by short line or tourist rail operations.
caption: Former Somerset & Kennebec track over the Kennebec River near Augusta, Maine, July 8, 2006
exif: {"Image Make": "NIKON CORPORATION", "Image Model": "NIKON D40", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "240", "Image YResolution": "240", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "Adobe Photoshop CS5 Macintosh", "Image DateTime": "2011:11:16 14:06:57", "Image ExifOffset": "216", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "882", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "5990", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/80", "EXIF FNumber": "9/2", "EXIF ExposureProgram": "Program Normal", "EXIF ISOSpeedRatings": "1600", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0221", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2011:07:06 20:20:15", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2011:07:06 20:20:15", "EXIF ShutterSpeedValue": "790241/125000", "EXIF ApertureValue": "86797/20000", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "-2/3", "EXIF MaxApertureValue": "18/5", "EXIF SubjectDistance": "4294967295", "EXIF MeteringMode": "Pattern", "EXIF LightSource": "Unknown", "EXIF Flash": "Flash did not fire", "EXIF FocalLength": "18", "EXIF SubSecTime": "40", "EXIF SubSecTimeOriginal": "40", "EXIF SubSecTimeDigitized": "40", "EXIF ColorSpace": "Uncalibrated", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "2008", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "1496", "EXIF SensingMethod": "One-chip color area", "EXIF FileSource": "Digital Camera", "EXIF SceneType": "Directly Photographed", "EXIF CVAPattern": "[2, 0, 2, 0, 2, 1, 1, 0]", "EXIF CustomRendered": "Normal", "EXIF ExposureMode": "Auto Exposure", "EXIF WhiteBalance": "Auto", "EXIF DigitalZoomRatio": "1", "EXIF FocalLengthIn35mmFilm": "27", "EXIF SceneCaptureType": "Standard", "EXIF GainControl": "High gain up", "EXIF Contrast": "Normal", "EXIF Saturation": "Normal", "EXIF Sharpness": "Normal", "EXIF SubjectDistanceRange": "0"}